As a new user, there comes a time (or there will come a time) when you are playing around with Ubuntu/Gnome, trying different themes, different engines, different window managers, etc, and all of a sudden you run into a problem that you can’t seem to find a way to fix it.
Maybe some of your customized settings are causing your gnome-panel to crash all the time or causing your windows and applications to look ugly, even having window buttons (close, minimize) disappear. You start Googling and spending a lot of time – sometimes days – trying to find how you can fix it.
You are frustrated (sometimes hitting your monitor/tower yelling some vulgarities at it as if it understands and you will kill it if it doesn’t fix it… there’s no Valentine’s love there, that’s for sure) and are ready to go back to Microsoft Windows.
But wait!
You keep thinking, “I wish I could just reset it back to its defaults, like a clean install, without losing all my applications and data.”
Well, you’re in luck. There is a way to reset your Desktop settings back to their defaults. If you keep in mind that everything in Linux is a file, all of its settings are files. All of Gnome’s customizations are located in their own specific folders. And these settings are user specific; they are in your Home folder. If you would create another user and log in with that user, you wouldn’t have any of the problems you are having in your own account. If you remove all these folders, you essentially remove all the settings. Therefore, we will remove the folders needed to reset Ubuntu/Gnome back to its defaults.
UPDATE (2008.01.30): Keep in mind that this will only reset your Gnome-specific settings. If you are having problems with your video card, display, x-server, etc., this WILL NOT fix your problems.
If you don’t have access to your graphical (GUI) desktop to delete these folders in Nautilus or you’re stuck at the login screen, drop to a terminal by hitting CTRL + ALT + F1, login to your account, and run this command:
rm -rf .gnome .gnome2 .gconf .gconfd .metacity
Get back to your GUI desktop by hitting CTRL + ALT + F7.
Login and VOILÀ! Just like the first time you ever logged into your Gnome desktop.
sorry, i meant to say that my files being deleted are not a worry as they are backed up externally.
@drew
Try this:
sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop
Thanks!!!!!
When making display settings change (like resolution, adding monitor, mirror, etc.) a backup file is saved in /etc/X11/xorg.conf with date-time stamp. My issue was resolved by going to a console prompt (CTRL + ALT + F1), and renaming the last backup to /etc/X11/xorg.conf.
In my case, I goofed up with the monitor resolution and mirror settings.
Thank you so much you saved my a$$. I set my bottom task-bar to auto-hide and it permanently auto hid. Then I screwed up and put my top one on the bottom one and locked up everything BUT the desktop. Luckily I had GNOME DO as a shortcut and it let me call up a terminal and firefox, or I would have had to re install everything. This article is now archived. Thanks again
Jim
Cheers, that command worked for me. everything is great now
additionally, to reset gnome main menu – delete ~/,local/share/applications folder.
Keep in mind that you should probably do this OUTSIDE of the gui. Unfortunately if you delete the files when logged in to GNOME, it will rewrite all the files with the incorrect settings still in them (it dumps the contents of an internal database before logging you out). Therefore, the best way of doing this is to switch to a terminal (ctrl + alt + f1) and run the command from there.
Thanks for this useful article , but
what about KDE ??
Is there any command like this to the same thing with KUBUNTU?